Tempest

“Low cards are what I’ve got

But I’ll play this hand whether I like it or not.”

   “Pay in Blood,” Bob Dylan

Two Rolling Stone issues came within a day of each other, with Dylan and Adele on the covers.  Critics are raving about Dylan’s “Tempest,” which contains songs about the Titanic and John Lennon, as well as a Western swing tune, “Duquesne Whistle,” a doo wop ballad, “Soon After Midnight,” a love song of sorts, “Long and Wasted Years,” as well as the political outrage (“another politician pumping out the piss”) of “Pay in Blood.”  “The Tempest” was one of William Shakespeare’s final plays, and Dylan’s friend and mentor Pete Seeger wrote “Full Fathom Five” using lines directly from Shakespeare’s play

IUN’s Radiation Therapy Club was selling corn of the cob in the library courtyard elote style, like Mexican street vendors sell it, using not only butter but mayonnaise and grated cotija cheese.  Talk about wretched excess!  It was delicious but hardly healthy.  When I went to wash my hands, I looked in the mirror and discovered I had mayo all over my face.

Anne Balay, up for promotion and tenure, wanted a letter of recommendation.  I concentrated on her scholarly output and papers I heard her deliver.  Concerning her forthcoming book “Steel Closets,” I wrote in part: “Anne developed an interest in oral history and labor studies, two of my fields of specialization.  Eager to acquire expertise at conducting interviews for her study of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered steelworkers, she attended an Oral History Association conference and picked my brain for tips to utilize and pitfalls to avoid.  She was a frequent visitor to IU Northwest’s Calumet Regional Archives, of which am co-director, in order to learn more about the culture and inner workings of the steel industry both from a union and management perspective.  What I especially admired was that she did not go into the project with a pre-conceived thesis or set of conclusions.  While passionate about the value of her work, she is anything but doctrinaire and is refreshing open to unraveling the subtleties, complexities, and contradictions that make social history such a fruitful and fascinating field.”

For dinner we walked from our condo to Sage Restaurant with Anne and Emma Balay and Mike Olszanski and Sue O’Leary.  Sue wore a “Women for Obama” button obtained while working at Obama headquarters in Michigan City.  She had another larger campaign button on her purse and reported that a woman with a Southern drawl came up to her and called her brave for displaying it openly.  Emma heads to L.A. in two days and filled us in on being an extra on the New Zealand set of “The Hobbitt.”  Since Oz was a steelworker for over 30 years, Anne’s book was a topic of conversation.  Mike pointed to the bureaucratization of the USWA as one reason that the union is not responsive to the need for protecting LGBT members from harassment a priority.  Anne claims her new Facebook profile picture bears a striking resemblance to her dad.

 

My review of Lawrence Samuel’s “The American Dream” cannot exceed 200 words, so I had to leave out any mention Steven Watts’s “Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream” or Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.”  Studs Terkel wrote “American Dreams: Lost and Found” in 1981 and then after 8 depressing years of Ronald Reagan, “The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the American Dream.”  Neither made my final revision.

Called Phil, our Fantasy League commissioner, to acquire a running back on waivers.  Talked to Tori about her volleyball exploits and congratulated Anthony on scoring two goals in each of his last two soccer matches.  Alissa posted a great photo of “Buddy” taking a shot on goal.

I ran into Anne Balay at a ceremony dedicating the Frank Caucci Languages, Cultures, and Listening Lab.  Among the speakers were administrators, a family member, and retired Spanish professor Angie Prado Komenich.  I told Angie that I inherited an old-fashioned tape recorder once used by foreign language students to hear audio tapes of French and Spanish words and phrases and that it came in handy for interviews with Sheriff Roy Dominguez in doing his autobiography. On back of the program was a brief bio stating that Frank “valued diversity and inclusiveness, in particular with regard to gender rights, and the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people.”

The Electrical Engineers won two of three games despite my worst night in recent memory.  I couldn’t get my ball to hook except when I didn’t want it to, and my first two games were so bad I moved over to the right and just aimed for the head pin.  Frank and Duke both struck out in the tenth frame that enabled us to eke out game 2 by four pins.

A researcher was in the Archives looking for information about Cudahy, once a working-class neighborhood near the East Chicago border with Gary until it was urban renewed to make way for the toll road and Cline Avenue.  Roy Dominguez family lived there when they first came up from Texas.  A hundred years ago there was a Cudahy Packing Company that produced Old Dutch Cleanser and also repaired refrigerator railroad cars.